Here's a few pics from Warbirds Over Wanaka here in NZ held Easter 2010. Because we were so close to the action (10-20m), and the programme was non-stop, a lot of shots were instinctive and totally unplanned. So please bear that in mind.
Not too sure of the aircraft type. Anyone know what it is? Thanks to JG, it's an Orion.

F-18's from the RAAF - awesome. They took us by surprise, travelling so fast, very difficult to get a good pic.

Vampire. I remember these as a kid doing flyby's over the towns.

If you don't know what this is, you must be from Mars!

The Catalina seaplane

Corsair on finals. Note the flaps/airbrakes(?)

The Corsair landing

Our Air Force skydiving team gave a great demo

The Yak 52 trainer. KGB!

We call it the Harvard. Known in the US as the Texan?

I think this is the Czech L-39, can someone confirm?

Sea Hawk helicopter

Zero. Pretty sure one of only three airworthy in the world.

I hope you have enjoyed these pics. Taken on my Nikon D40/18-200. Most shots using polarising filter to enhance the sky and keep the exposure speeds down. Comments most welcome!

Last edited by audioman on Wed Apr 14, 2010 8:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

These smaller airshows can sometimes be better than the big ones (I'm fortunate to have been to the RIAT a number of times) as they are more intimate and you can get a lot closer to the action/aircraft.

You did well with the slower shutter speeds to give the blur on the prop/rotor and panning (I always seem to cock it up! )

I like to shots of the Vampire (long time since I last saw one airborne) and the Orion and yes, that is an L-39 Albatros.

Thanks everyone for the comments! Here's a few more. I'm no expert, I set my Nikon D40 on centre-weighted exposure, no exposure compensation (as the D40 already over exposes by about one stop) in order to bring a little more detail into the subject matter. As it turns out most were slightly over-exposed and fixed in levels and sharpened in Gimp. Most shots are generously cropped. I used continuous on the shutter, most pics I panned and took around 5-6 shots. A polariser was necessary to cut the light down in order to use slow shutter speeds to get the amount of prop-blur I wanted, but then there's a very high risk of shake, but by taking heaps of shots (around 750!) there's usually one good one out of a set. I used program, and turned the dial while looking thru the viewfinder to get the shutter speed I wanted.

This is from a previous Warbirds Over Wanaka several years ago.
RAAF F-111 doing the big fuel dump trick. I remember the heat was intense!
Taken with a Konica Minolta A200.

This is Jurgis in his aerobatic aircraft and the DC3. He went on to do rolls around the DC3.